CharleyKerfeld said:

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Type in "Jake Meyers outfield assist" or "Jake Meyers throws out baserunner" to YouTube and post the results here. I'll wait.

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I can't believe this from you, the original team Jake guy. But don't worry, I'll get you back on the bandwagon.

He doesn't have any Bo Jackson gunning down Harold Reynolds highlights because he doesn't have a ton of raw arm strength. He doesn't have a cannon, but there's more to having a good arm than just throwing 95+ MPH.

Compare him to Jordan Walker:

Jordan Walker: 96.0 MPH average max-effort velocity, 102.0 MPH peak, but -6 OAA.

Jake Meyers: 88.1 MPH average max-effort velocity, 88.1 MPH peak, but 90th+ percentile in average Statcast Arm Value.

Walker has an absolute cannon. 102! I'm sure there are plenty of highlights from when he actually hits his target. That's not the argument. He makes errors and misses cutoff men and doesn't have a great outfield arm. He can throw it hard to who knows where.

To me when you say Meyers has a "noodle arm" that like calling Luis Arraez a "noodle bat" because he doesn't have great exit velocity while drooling over how (you'll like this, big boy) JOEY GALLO crushes the ball...when he actually hits it.

Wabs said:

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So a guy (Arrighetti) that we reportedly weren't willing to part with last year to obtain Cease or (I think) Donovan, we gave up for a rental that has the OPS of Altuve and Cam? Make it make sense.

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Arrighetti was a part of a much larger package.

Also - from what I understand, the Astros have some injury/durability concerns with Arrighetti. The pitching lab also thinks they've basically maxed out his potential and he is who he is moving forward.

I didn't mind the trade initially - but I was assuming there were one or two more deals coming.

I'm shocked that was the only move made.

I'll give Dana this… he insisted that the Astros top prospects don't get moved. Alvarez, Neyens, Pecko, Meyer, Fermin fall under that category. They like those kids a lot. He didn't budge.

On the flip side, it's nearly impossible to "buy" if you don't want to give up your prospects. So why not do a soft sell?

I think it's total disagreement in the front office on which direction they want to go.

I don't know about all the stats and numbers. All I know is before he got injured this year, it seemed like 90% of pop ups to him in CF with a runner on second resulted in that runner tagging up and making it to third easy.

Never seen so many runners take 3rd on a CFer…..

Agreed on the selling. Like I said previously, I gave up on that idea I just didn't want us to do something stupid, which we didn't do (I know, super high expectations I have these days).

The interesting thing to me is this team is still just a win the division and get ejected early type. The division is so bad we could have sold on some guys and still potentially accomplish that same goal.

To your point, kudos to Dana on having some integrity. He could have said, "I'm gone eff it let's just go balls to the wall" trading prospects away. It's kind of sad when you measure how successful your GM is by their ability to obfuscate to keep the owner from effing things up.

htxag09 said:

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I don't know about all the stats and numbers. All I know is before he got injured this year, it seemed like 90% of pop ups to him in CF with a runner on second resulted in that runner tagging up and making it to third easy.

Never seen so many runners take 3rd on a CFer…..

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It was the runners advancing from 1B to 2B that got me. 2 seasons ago it was noticeable how many times that happened. And that should never happen.

He was slow to decide where to throw, he wasn't getting behind the ball in the right position to throw, he had a weird double clutch. A lot of it looked like basic stuff that ML players shouldn't be doing.

Then last year things got better. His decision making process was faster and he was getting in a much better throwing position. This year he regressed.

If you can hit that stuff is secondary. But he can't hit well enough to cover that over.

"I have a job and I have to live with myself. If I'm not here next year, I'm going to be somewhere else, and I want to come across as a person that values the organization you're working for. I think it's the right thing to do." - Dana from Rome's Athletic article.

I need to see the method statcast uses for "arm value," b/c I find it hard to believe Meyers is in the 90th percentile with an arm strength that is 24th percentile. Not sure that 90th is accurate anyway.

edit: Maybe arm value takes into consideration his ability to get into position to prevent advancing on hits or something

tjack16 said:

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One positive, as I think Javier is figuring it out. His last three outings have been really good. I know last night he gave up the runs a little early and our offense couldn't score… But he did give us a quality start which we haven't had in quite a while outside of Hunter and Lambert

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The quality start translates to a 4.5 ERA, which is a fantastic improvement and dropped his ERA on the season from 7.17 to 6.59 (with a -.4 bWAR).

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/j/javiecr01.shtml

Arrigheti has a career average ERA of 4.66 and 4.6 this season over 17 GS (with a .6 bWAR). He averaged what we hope Javier, Burrows, and Imai can (drastically) improve to.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/a/arrigsp01.shtml

He has been our third best SP by bWAR this season, has three more years of relatively cheap control, and we traded him for a rental. We kneecapped ourselves this season and long term to put a less than 50 (regular season) game bandaid on the atrocity of an OF Dana put together.

Shades of BoB managing for the moment to save his job knowing if he's fired the down the road cost is irrelevant to him.

We needed SP, and instead we gave up one of the only 3 SP we have with a positive bWAR (and 3 more years of relatively cheap control).

You couldn't ask for a better return if you're a Blue Jays fan for a rental. 3 years of backend SP with quality start average ERA on his rookie deal (important to clubs for whom the luxury tax largely operates as a salary cap - like us).

Hopefully Varsho plays a large role in a deep playoff run.

That's exactly what it is. Arm Value takes everything into account. Arm Strength is how hard/fast the fielder can throw, and Arm Value is the ability to take away extra bases by factoring in range

IMO, Crane knows (and has known) that Dana is a lame duck GM. So he wasn't going to allow Dana to make a bunch of moves and end up depleting an already pretty bare farm. He allowed Dana to make a move to "somewhat" address the OF and to just do something at the deadline.

Faustus said:

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tjack16 said:

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One positive, as I think Javier is figuring it out. His last three outings have been really good. I know last night he gave up the runs a little early and our offense couldn't score… But he did give us a quality start which we haven't had in quite a while outside of Hunter and Lambert

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The quality start translates to a 4.5 ERA, which is a fantastic improvement and dropped his ERA on the season from 7.17 to 6.59 (with a -.4 bWAR).

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/j/javiecr01.shtml

Arrigheti has a career average ERA of 4.66 and 4.6 this season over 17 GS (with a .6 bWAR). He averaged what we hope Javier, Burrows, and Imai can (drastically) improve to.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/a/arrigsp01.shtml

He has been our third best SP by bWAR this season, has three more years of relatively cheap control, and we traded him for a rental. We kneecapped ourselves this season and long term to put a less than 50 (regular season) game bandaid on the atrocity of an OF Dana put together.

Shades of BoB managing for the moment to save his job knowing if he's fired the down the road cost is irrelevant to him.

We needed SP, and instead we gave up one of the only 3 SP we have with a positive bWAR (and 3 more years of relatively cheap control).

You couldn't ask for a better return if you're a Blue Jays fan for a rental. 3 years of backend SP with quality start average ERA on his rookie deal (important to clubs for whom the luxury tax largely operates as a salary cap - like us).

Hopefully Varsho plays a large role in a deep playoff run.

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I find it hard to believe our "pitching lab" gave up on him when the issue had nothing to do his arsenal, but of his control

I think this is possibly one of the worst trades we've ever done

Look -- we all know this team is extremely flawed, and no amount of moves other than mortgaging everything we have for this year would turn this club into a serious WS contender.

With that in mind, the team got better with Varsho. He's a former Gold Glover with some pop (though he hasn't really shown it this year). Spaghetti is reaching his prime years, and he is what he is: an inconsistent pitcher with a 93 mph fastball.

Dana is cleaning up the slop left from Crane and Bagwell's bad GM decisions while being handcuffed. Kudos to him for being able to operate under those restrictions.

The trade deadline was disappointing, but even making the moves and selling the farm -- this team would still not be a WS contender. And with 2027 a complete question mark, it makes a lot of sense to hold on to all your prospects you are high on. The only miss -- imo -- is not seeing if you could get a king's ransom for Pena since the 2027 season likely won't happen.

Well said

I think what this team did at the deadline was pretty good given their situation. Yeah I would've like a little more but seems like a comfortable in between approach in which they improved for this year while not giving up anything of value that we'll miss in the future.

They upgraded the team while holding on to high end prospects and major contributors on the ML roster. Sounds like anything more would've meant mortgaging the future which I don't think is a good idea for a team that's just over .500 with multiple holes to fill.

agproducer said:

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Look -- we all know this team is extremely flawed, and no amount of moves other than mortgaging everything we have for this year would turn this club into a serious WS contender.

With that in mind, the team got better with Varsho. He's a former Gold Glover with some pop (though he hasn't really shown it this year). Spaghetti is reaching his prime years, and he is what he is: an inconsistent pitcher with a 93 mph fastball.

Dana is cleaning up the slop left from Crane and Bagwell's bad GM decisions while being handcuffed. Kudos to him for being able to operate under those restrictions.

The trade deadline was disappointing, but even making the moves and selling the farm -- this team would still not be a WS contender. And with 2027 a complete question mark, it makes a lot of sense to hold on to all your prospects you are high on. The only miss -- imo -- is seeing if you could get a king's ransom for Pena since the 2027 season likely won't happen.

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AggiEE said:

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I think this is possibly one of the worst trades we've ever done

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IMO that is a crazy hot take. Odds are the rest of the season is a wash at least by value, Varsho should out-WAR Arrighetti by being an everyday starter. We've seen Spencer for three years. Injuries and inconsistency. We weren't extending him at this point, and after a lockout he would've had two+ seasons of control. I loved him as a hometown homegrown player, and I love the way he focused mentally and talked about the game. To try and maximize the outfield and allow for a LF platoon the rest of the season, I think we got decent value for him. I hope he pitches his ass off and Varsho contributes down the stretch.

You are all splitting hairs.

Varsho had a better arm before his shoulder injury and surgery. Since then, he has a noodle arm, but he makes up for it with his range and positioning. Similar story with Jake.

BTW, Jake pitched at Nebraska and had a 93 mph fastball. Not that he was making anyone forget Nolan Ryan, and throwing off a mound is different from throwing from the outfield, but he at least had a decent arm.

The American League is just so wide open this year that really getting in is the crucial thing. Especially if we get in as the 3 seed we avoid Tampa until a potential ALCS.

Yes!

And man let's be honest, we aren't going to win the World Series...but making the playoffs and having a chance is so much more fun than tearing it all down. At least in my opinion.

I don't trust the teardown under Dana anyway.

Meanwhile in the Astros war room... pic.twitter.com/jMKWlxBJBO

— TravisT (@LeftyTravis) August 3, 2026

linkdude said:

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AggiEE said:

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I think this is possibly one of the worst trades we've ever done

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IMO that is a crazy hot take. Odds are the rest of the season is a wash at least by value, Varsho should out-WAR Arrighetti by being an everyday starter. We've seen Spencer for three years. Injuries and inconsistency. We weren't extending him at this point, and after a lockout he would've had two+ seasons of control. I loved him as a hometown homegrown player, and I love the way he focused mentally and talked about the game. To try and maximize the outfield and allow for a LF platoon the rest of the season, I think we got decent value for him. I hope he pitches his ass off and Varsho contributes down the stretch.

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Varsho isn't a material upgrade over alternatives we already have and is a rental.

If we are going to play pitcher Roulette with Javier, Blanco, Wesneski, Burrows, and Imai; I would rather have one more round available because there's a high likelihood that many of these pitchers won't pan out either through injury or just poor pitching

It's a horrible trade in terms of the value it brings to this team this year and for years to come.

I'm not necessarily against trading Spencer, but I am for 2 months of Varsho.

Your confidence to win a playoff series is well beyond mine. I don't think there is a single postseason team where I would take our starters over their starters. Maybe the white Sox?

The 2023 Rangers rotation was nothing spectacular. Eovaldi heated up. Granted their lineup was a lot better than ours is. Going back 20 years, the 83-win Cardinals won it all with Carpenter and bunch of scrubs and their lineup was Pujols and Rolen and a bunch of regular guys that got hot at the right time.

I wouldn't put any money on even winning a playoff series, but once you're there you've got a shot.

I'll never be mad at making the postseason. We are spoiled from being favorites so often recently.

EABC_AG said:

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Your confidence to win a playoff series is well beyond mine. I don't think there is a single postseason team where I would take our starters over their starters. Maybe the white Sox?

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If we are the 3, then I think right now I'd feel good about winning a home series against the current 6 Cleveland. As long as we get ace Hunter in game 1. The current three teams in contention for the 6 seed are Cleveland, Texas and Minnesota. I'd feel good against those teams

A 5 game series? Don't have as much faith but we've seen crazier things happen (2023 Arizona and Texas, 2022 Philly, 2021 Atlanta, 2020 Astros, 2019 nationals, etc)

Last 2 games: 25 LOB and 5-24 with RISP.

Yesterday sucked -- the deadline, the game, and the freaking doyers.
This however is absolutely hilarious. I wonder how long he'll keep this up.

The Mets called up the guy that does a leaping split after every strikeout. pic.twitter.com/CF7ZY50SbY

— Grant Paulsen (@GrantPaulsen) August 4, 2026

Crane is nothing more than Jerry Jones. Jerry got his super bowls when Jimmy was running things, and then he got butthurt and fired him, and ever since he has done nothing but try to show the world that he can build a team on his own and win a championship.

Crane is doing the same thing. I am almost positive he got butthurt with Click and now has it in his head that he can build a team himself and win a world series. He's Jerry 2.0 plain and simple. Until he gives up control to an actual GM, not a yes man, I fear the Astros will be stuck in purgatory. I hope I am wrong.

More promotions coming I'm sure.

Andrew Taylor, the #Astros second round pick in 2022, has been promoted to Double-A. The right-hander had a 2.70 ERA over five outings for Asheville this season. https://t.co/GFsonuogy4

— Astros Future (@AstrosFuture) August 4, 2026

That's it in a nutshell. Pitching yesterday was plenty good enough to win. Timely hitting was abysmal. It's Bezbol… that's what happens and it happens to the best of teams sometimes.

Ags #1 said:

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Yeah but word is out the gm is clearly not the gm, it's just a figure head. How about this, if you are a good gm or want to make a career of it how is Houston a job for you to accomplish that? I don't think it Is with the way things work today

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I've only heard this on this message board, other than the report of Crane nixing the Abreu trade to the Twins.

I'm not saying it's not true, just that this is not some prevailing thought on the Astros overall in terms of national or local media, etc. Maybe I've just missed it.

AggiEE said:

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Faustus said:

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tjack16 said:

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One positive, as I think Javier is figuring it out. His last three outings have been really good. I know last night he gave up the runs a little early and our offense couldn't score… But he did give us a quality start which we haven't had in quite a while outside of Hunter and Lambert

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The quality start translates to a 4.5 ERA, which is a fantastic improvement and dropped his ERA on the season from 7.17 to 6.59 (with a -.4 bWAR).

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/j/javiecr01.shtml

Arrigheti has a career average ERA of 4.66 and 4.6 this season over 17 GS (with a .6 bWAR). He averaged what we hope Javier, Burrows, and Imai can (drastically) improve to.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/a/arrigsp01.shtml

He has been our third best SP by bWAR this season, has three more years of relatively cheap control, and we traded him for a rental. We kneecapped ourselves this season and long term to put a less than 50 (regular season) game bandaid on the atrocity of an OF Dana put together.

Shades of BoB managing for the moment to save his job knowing if he's fired the down the road cost is irrelevant to him.

We needed SP, and instead we gave up one of the only 3 SP we have with a positive bWAR (and 3 more years of relatively cheap control).

You couldn't ask for a better return if you're a Blue Jays fan for a rental. 3 years of backend SP with quality start average ERA on his rookie deal (important to clubs for whom the luxury tax largely operates as a salary cap - like us).

Hopefully Varsho plays a large role in a deep playoff run.

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I find it hard to believe our "pitching lab" gave up on him when the issue had nothing to do his arsenal, but of his control

I think this is possibly one of the worst trades we've ever done

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Relax man... Arreghetti had moments but his peripherals have always been terrible and showed even when he was good it was likely unsustainable. He has no history of sustained success, and the guy simply can't throw strikes consistently.

Maybe he eventually changes something that makes him a legit starting pitcher, but as of now he is what he has been. A fringe major league starter. That's not something to get worked up about, even if you don't love the return (I don't either).

Crane nixing that Abreu for Larnach trade should be proof enough. That trade is not the level of one the owner should be heavily involved in.

This board is going to be so much fun when Dana exits and Jeff Bagwell is our new GM.

ktownag08 said:

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This board is going to be so much fun when Dana exits and Jeff Bagwell is our new GM.

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Don't forget the possibility of Brad Ausmus

Beat40 said:

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Crane nixing that Abreu for Larnach trade should be proof enough. That trade is not the level of one the owner should be heavily involved in.

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Imagine Dana having to call the Twins back and saying, "I know we had a deal, but my owner nixed it". For that level of a deal, the GM doesn't have the final say? Really?

Why would any other team want to get serious with Dana when they know Crane is going to step-in. Things move fast, especially during 2 days before the deadline. Other GMs ain't got time for that.

Beat40 said:

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Crane nixing that Abreu for Larnach trade should be proof enough. That trade is not the level of one the owner should be heavily involved in.

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Fair point, if that's accurate.

Beat40 said:

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Crane nixing that Abreu for Larnach trade should be proof enough. That trade is not the level of one the owner should be heavily involved in.

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It wasn't a 1:1 trade

No way

We don't have all the info